Carson-Douglas wrestlers meet for league title - again

Once again - for the fourth year in a row, actually - the Carson and Douglas high school wrestling teams are undefeated as they prepare to collide for the Sierra League dual meet championship tonight at Carson's Morse Burley Gymnasium.

Action is scheduled to start at 5:30 with a mixture of J.V. matches and matches between the Carson Bulldogs and Douglas Wildcats youth programs. The varsity dual is scheduled to get under way 6:30.

"We're looking forward to the matchup," Carson coach Jim Franz said. " It's Senior Night, there should be a good crowd, so we're excited."

The arch rivals are undefeated in league and have only lost one dual overall this season. Both teams lost the Central California power Lemoore at Carson's Capital City Duals in December.

"It's always fun to see Carson," Douglas coach Mark Lilly said. "Carson's tough. They've been to some big tournaments in California, they've wrestled some tough people, we've got our work cut out."

Today figures to be another good battle, not only from a team standpoint, but individually as well.

"There should be some real good matches all the way through the middle weights," Lilly said. "That'll probably decide it."

Both teams have standouts tentatively scheduled to face off at 140 pounds, where Douglas has senior veteran and team co-captain Bradley Johnson and Carson has junior Ahron Osheroff, whose season has been highlighted the last two weeks with gold medal performances at the Clayton Valley and Lindhurst invitationals in California.

The 145-pound match features two experienced wrestlers - Carson senior Micah Whitcome and Douglas sophomore Jake Williams - who have been standouts in the USA Wrestling youth program since their kindergarten days, but will be meeting on the mat for the first time.

Carson's David Cadwallader (215), Kyle Banko (125 pounds), Kevin Riggin (130), Travis Lamborn (160) and Osheroff won championships in their weight classes at Lindhurst this past Saturday. Meanwhile, Ryan Pruitt (135) and Williams of Douglas and Carson's Owen Craugh, wrestling for the Carson J.V. team, were gold medal winners at the Fernley Classic on Saturday.

This will be a good tune-up before the Northern 4A Regional Championships on Feb. 4-5 at Galena High. The 4A state tournament will be held the following week in Winnemucca.

"We've been trying to focus our workouts toward that," Franz said. "We're hoping to get our lineup set. With all the injuries, we really haven't had everybody together in the lineup at the same time all season, but now we'd like to try and get some momentum going into zone."

Notes ... The Senators capped their undefeated dual meet season and won the league championship last year with a 44-24 victory in Minden. In 2003, the Tigers and Senators fought to a 30-30 deadlock and settled for a co-championship. Before that, at the 2002 Capital City Duals, Douglas beat Carson 37-29 in the finals to end Senators' 28-match win streak, dating back to the 2000 season. It was the first time Douglas had beaten Carson in a dual meet since 1991. ... Jonas Schenzel and Robbie Bozin are Carson's team co-leaders in pins this season with 13 each.

DOUGLAS VS. CARSON

PROBABLE STARTERS

DOUGLASCARSON

103Ryan Olsen (fr.) 16-8vs.Owen Craugh (so.) 20-14

112Devon Barker (so.) 17-8vs.Todd Banko (fr.) 15-12

119Brian Kaplan (jr.) 16-7vs.Robbie Bozin (so.) 22-8

125Tony Ferris (fr.) 19-5vs.Kyle Banko (so.) 19-7

130Cameron Ames (jr.) 19-9vs.Kevin Riggin (sr.) 22-8

135Ryan Pruitt (so.) 16-2vs.Aaron Jolcover (fr.) 9-6

140Bradley Johnson (sr.) 16-4sr.Ahron Osheroff (jr.) 27-7

145Jake Williams (so.) 18-6vs.Micah Whitcome (sr.) 21-9

152Josh Hintze (sr.) 10-10vs.Loren Wooldridge (jr.) 21-10

160Troy Howell (so.) 2-8vs.Travis Lamborn (so.) 31-7

171Sean Molina (so.) 14-12vs.Jonas Schenzel (jr.) 25-12

189Danny Judd (fr.) 0-1vs.Matt Heath (so.) 1-5

215Lake Terrell (so.) 11-11vs.David Cadwallader (sr.) 22-4

275Matt Castro (jr.) 18-8vs.Jason Klug (sr.) 21-8